Vladimir Obruchev (1863-1956) was a geologist and geographer, explorer of Siberia and Central Asia; Academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1929). He was one of the most known geologists in Russia of the first half of the 20th century.

Obruchev graduated from the St Petersburg Mining Institute and was appointed the first state geologist of Eastern Siberia (1886). He carried out geological and geographical investigations in many regions of Eastern Siberia and Central Asia, was the Professor in Tomsk (1901-12), Taurida (1918-21) and Moscow (1921-29) universities; Director of Geological Institute (1929-33) and Institute of Permafrost Studies (1939-56) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Also, he was the member of geological and geographical societies of Germany, France, Great Britain, and the USA.

Many of his works deal with the origins of loess in Central Asia and Siberia, ice formation and permafrost in Siberia, problems of Siberian tectonics, Siberian goldfields. He published more than 1,000 scientific and popular scientific works. But the first art story (“The sea is noisy”, 1884) was published earlier than the first scientific article (1886).

Obruchev always aspired to popularize scientific knowledge and to transform even scientific publications into works of art. It can be seen in names of scientific articles:

“Hollows of Central Asia and their scientific treasures, expecting studying”;

“Riddle of the Siberian Polar region”;

“A role and value of dust in the nature”;

“Aeolus City” and others.

He also authored many popular scientific works, such as Formation of Mountains and Ore Deposits (1932), Field Geology (1927), Fundamentals of Geology (1944), ets.

Obruchev considered fantastic books by J.Verne, A.Conan Doyle and K.Hlouch were very weak and improbable from the scientific point of view. And in his science fiction books he aspired authentically to show achievements of science, especially in geology. But today some of his ideas seem very naive. Nevertheless, the best of Obruchev's novels: “Plutonia” (1915) and “Sannikov Land” (1924) are now popular in readers, continue to be republished and sometimes readers start to argue: whether there were described events or it is an invention.